Ivonne shot me a link yesterday of Neil Gaiman’s thoughts and advice to prospective writers. Say what you want about Neil Gaiman, or, more to the point, about Amanda Palmer, but the dude knows how to write a story. American Gods is one of the best and that shit is just compounded by the rad-ass show, but I digress. His point is well taken: The only way to get good at something is to just fucking do it.

Shut up, Nike.

I took that pretty literally when I was able to look back on the last year of my life and really see that simply picking up your shit and making it happen has been proven true. I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’ve become healthier in mind and body. I’ve been instrumental in making my marriage even that much better. None of this was through complacency, but a lot of hard work and insistence on action.

Writing is no different.

So as I sit here on the cusp of starting school to get my undergraduate degree in English, I say to myself that, while my goals are lofty yet attainable, nothing gets done without action. I know there’s a part of me that’s waiting for the hard work to begin to start harder work – and that’s ok, too, ’cause I’m not gonna kick myself in the ass over knowing how I’m motivated – but if I get in the habit now of quota and word count then fuck, all of a sudden, I’m gonna have some shit that’s useable.

Like my boy Neil said, “When you go back and read what you’ve written, you’ll never know if it was during a moment of inspiration or part of the daily slog.” Something like that. And he’s right.